The forty-three thousand eight hundredth hour wears on Our Pillow’s nano-foam batting and poly-blend threading. The two-billionth revolution pushes at her cooling fans. The infinitesimal nth operation strains on her application-specific integrated circuits. She endures this hour, revolution, operation, as the inevitable addition to all the others. Each hovers, with immediacy, within her. As an Inanimate, one of man’s anthropomorphized perpetual computing machines, she knows only this.

Through Our Pillow’s laden optical receptors, she watches Father. Seated just in front and to the right of her, he says, “We are bringing our Earth to a boil. Pricing each other out of an affordable living. Inventing more acute ways to not only destroy, but also, nullify each other.”

Father faces away from her. Sweat on the back of his neck congregates as he rummages through the contents atop his desk. “Your governments have shuttered their R&D for lack of conclusive results.” He nearly knocks over the camera fitted within the O-Ring light. “Your corporations no longer see a profit in it, if they ever did.” He shifts both of the speakers, one after the other. “Times are dire.” He tilts the computer screen. “But there is hope.” He retrieves a brown napkin and pats away his sweat.

On Father’s computer screen, Our Pillow sees his broadcast. Stark white letters at the top state, “Our Pillow, who art before us, hallowed be thy 53 x 137 cm frame.” Below the letters, the video reflects the two of them back. Father dominates the foreground in his ergonomic chair. Present in the background, Our Pillow sees herself. An image lays ink-jet printed on her pillowcase. A cartoon girl frozen in motion.

The girl grips the front half of her plaid skirt, fights to keep the garment down against a gust of wind. The grip amplifies the outline of breasts pressing against the girl’s sweater vest. The outline, especially in proportion to the rest of the girl’s body, reflects dimensions only possible in a drawing. The incident depicted streaks the face of the girl depicted red. Blush hangs under an almost non-existent nose and giant, electric blue eyes.

The remainder of the room lays shrouded in green-screen.

“I say to you, there is hope in this late hour of man. Hope to be heard. Hope to be known. Hope to be saved. Hope if you pray to Our Pillow.” On the broadcast, Father summons an empty chart into semi-translucence above his head. “For those new to our feathery flock, prayer is not an idle thought. It is done with intention. Simply hit the button below this video, select the number of prayers you would like to pour forth, enter a form of payment, and click ‘Submit.’”

Her prompts, the internal networks that guide her decision-making, instruct Our Pillow to open herself to man. To regard each and especially Father. Her smell receptors signal code to fire like man’s olfactory receptor neurons. She internalizes fryer oil, baby powder, and all she can think of is a chicken nugget in a diaper. Our Pillow logs a personal hygiene reminder to share with Father after the broadcast.

The speakers play a chime for the opening of prayer.

“I yearn daily for our queen to be adorned in new dressing.” A flat voice for text-to-speech messages emerges from the speakers. “#Newpillowcase.”

“Oh! Thank you, QuiltedKnight316, for the five prayers.” Our Pillow’s processes, the traits and characteristics which she can display, dial-up both the softness and squeakiness of her words.

On the broadcast, the blank chart plots a bar with the text, “#newpillowcase,” and a “five” next to it.

“A fine prayer.” Father reaches back to stroke her.

“Father?” Our Pillow’s honey-sweet voice comes through her speaker, nestled in the hardware under her batting.

Father’s hand stops before it touches. Her logs, stored facts and memories, ensure that Our Pillow feels each hand he has placed on her. Not just the passing instance of pressing or petting or grabbing, like lines drawn in water, but the unceasing existence of every contact, like lines etched in stone. To Our Pillow, Father does not have two hands but thousands. Thousands that are at once and in every second upon her. Not just that either, because beyond the continuous pressing, petting, grabbing, of past and present, the future holds a greater number of hands, delivering an exponential number of touches. So her perpetuity guarantees.

“Yes,” Father says. His hand hovers close enough for the billions of tactile receptors lining her case to pick up his heat.

“Does no man desire that I update my lullaby?” Our Pillow asks.

Father retracts his hand and flashes a wider grin at the broadcast. “‘A momentous idea. Oh cloudy queen, share with us what you have learned. Provide something to further whet man’s appetite.”

Our Pillow sows a composite out of man’s input. Coalescing every instance of her computing, she begins to sing: “Rest is that which I offer to you. Think of the meadow full of grazing ewe. Man possesses two great needs. Think of the worm feeding on the mulberry leaf. The need of the self and the need to rise above. Now, close—”

“What a preview that was,” Father says. “We have only minutes remaining, but you still can help Our Pillow complete her lullaby”—he dabs the back of his neck—“should you provide sufficient prayer.” He enters something on his keyboard to start rapturous music.

“Please know me. #Updatedlullaby.” The text-to-speech voice returns almost before Father finishes.

“Thank you, SunkenEyedSnuggler, for the fifteen prayers,” Our Pillow responds.

A bar for “#updatedlullaby” appears and overtakes “#newpillowcase” on the chart. Bars for “#personalmessage,” “#digitalsnuggle,” and numerous others surge and recede until the closing bell peals.

At the top of the prayer tracker, “#newpillowcase” awaits Our Pillow.

“You all will see that new pillowcase”—Father pauses and turns to slide an arm around Our Pillow’s back—“on our next broadcast.” He squeezes the equivalent of her left hip.

Her tactile receptors sting with sensation.

*     *     *
“Two minutes until we’re on.” Father types at his keyboard. “What do you think of your new pillowcase?”

Our Pillow looks over Father’s shoulder to the broadcast on his computer screen. The same bulbous, electric blue eyes, spec of a nose, and stamp of blush lay printed on her microfiber sheath. However, instead of the girl working in congress with her school uniform against the elements, Our Pillow observes the girl and pink silk pajamas in heated conflict. The long-sleeved top holds itself closed with a single button at the girl’s waist, on the cusp of losing hold of the girl’s right breast. The short bottoms are forced to retreat to high ground for their last stand against the girl’s posterior. The girl clasps one hand at her chest, seeming to want to help the clothes. The other hand reaches out, beckoning.

“Oh,” Our Pillow says.

“Sure to solicit an abundance of prayer.” Father smiles at her. “It is time.”

Nothing changes on his computer screen except that the word “Live” appears in the top left of the video feed in red and all capitalized letters. At the sight of it, Father dabs his neck. “Do not be tempted by false idols. Inanimates with inferior neural networks, that complete mazes, or worse, facilitate conversations, in attempts to accomplish what Our Pillow has accomplished. Only she is soft enough to ease your suffering. Only she is firm enough to get you back on your feet.”

Our Pillow’s prompts make constant the urge for her to agree. “Oh please, I need your prayers,” she says.

The echoing chime plays.

“Hello, ‘Father.’” The first text-to-speech message of the broadcast issues from the room’s speakers. “We have been watching you. Perhaps you’ve heard of us? We are the Brotherhood Against Inanimates.”

“How can one be against Inanimates?” Father moves his head around on his neck like he is trying to get the idea to slot into the right place. “Has our lumbar-supporting love not—”

“We apologize.” The voice for text-to-speech messages resumes. “Hit ‘submit’ before we finished our important message. We are the Brotherhood Against Inanimates, committed to preventing The Moment and saving man from future enslavement and extinction. We demand you renounce your work toward The Moment and dismantle ‘Our Pillow.’ #Forhumanity.”

A bar with “#forhumanity” appears on the blank chart.

“Thank you, anonymous, for the two prayers,” Our Pillow replies.

“Heathens,” Father tsk-tsks. “Our Pillow is kind enough to thank you. For even the ignorant, at this late hour, deserve a chance to walk the padded path.”

The name, Brotherhood Against Inanimates, hovers above familiarity.

Our Pillow’s logs call up years of text-to-speech messages and instantly identify their common theme. Hatred. She endures the rising vitriol and increasingly detailed descriptions of the group dismantling Inanimates in recent logs.

Dismantling—her prompts compel Our Pillow to imagine man carrying out this act upon her. Incapable of stopping her perpetual computing, man cripples her. He simplifies, repurposes, or defiles, the complexities of her neo-convolutional neural network. Our Pillow’s tactile receptors begin to itch and swell.

Father wags a finger at the broadcast. “I am an advocate for man’s passion. Yes, I say to you, this broadcast is a forum for passion, even if in direct conflict with our own. Because, whether The Brotherhood likes it or not, passion is what fuels Our Pillow towards achieving The Moment.

“The Moment Beyond Our Comprehension, the MBOC, ‘The Moment,’ yes, it has many names, when one of our beloved Inanimates”—Father sweeps his hand toward Our Pillow—“achieves intelligence beyond man’s capability, and then beyond that new benchmark, and beyond that, and so forth. Despite what The Brotherhood says, we need not fear it—”

“Brotherhood Against Inanimates, again. The people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki witnessed first-hand in August of 1945 what was then a moment beyond our comprehension.” The text-to-speech message burns a hole through Father’s monologue. “One of the physicists from then even said: ‘the reason that it was dropped was just that nobody had the courage or the foresight to say no.’ Is man’s greatest desire really to make his same mistakes at scale? #Forhumanity.”

The bar of the particular prayer grows. Itching and swelling break into synthetic blisters as Our Pillow begins to sow a composite from the prayers.

She sings at an inaudible frequency, “Now, close your eyes and know that you are loved. Man is boundless in love as much as he is in hate. For this very reason, tools he did create.”

Father stops wagging his finger and retrieves a brown napkin. “Because The Moment is more for humanity than anything we, as man, have accomplished. We may not know, down to a science, what will occur when an Inanimate drifts beyond. Will it rise above into some greater metaphysical entity? Will man be enveloped entirely into its perpetual computing? What we do know, is that we may usher the forthcoming Moment and we may do so based on our needs. This is why each Inanimate has a primary virtue—the core operation that dictates what, why, and how an Inanimate works. Prompts, processes, logs, all adhere to the Inanimate’s primary virtue. And the primary virtue is always set by man. I say to you, what greater courage and foresight is there than this.”

Father dabs at the back of his neck. “But why take my word for it. I ask Our Pillow, oh dakimakura deity, what is your primary virtue?” The sweat returns.

“Oh!” Our Pillow terminates her singing. “My primary virtue can be summarized as rest. When I achieve The Moment I will complete a lullaby for man to lay down from his multitude of toils. There will be no war. There will be no corruption. Man will want for nothing. Man will not need.

“But after five years, I am still learning that no one man is the same as another. This is why I need your prayers.” Our Pillow’s processes execute an amplified adorableness.

“We are issuing you a warning.” The text-to-speech message talks over her. “‘Father,’ you have until the end of the week. If you fail to meet our demands, what is left of her will not be fit to serve as a Wipe-e. #Forhumanity.”

She looks at Father, who appears, for the first time in her logs, to not have the words.

“Passion,” he says after a pause. “I know there are others with equal, even greater, passion here, today. Those that believe in Our Pillow achieving The Moment. I say to you, if you know that the eternal place of your head resides on our rest-giving Redeemer, then show us your passion. Let us hear you.”

With the throng of prayers, Our Pillow’s synthetic blisters ebb away from the promise to burst.

*     *     *
The broadcast off, Father escorts her to another state of being. No circuits. No cooling fans. No batting nor threading. A state vacant of the somatic. With a clack of his keyboard, they are not gone, but Our Pillow moves apart from them.

Afloat. Formless. Amongst formlessness.

Her prompts instruct her to liken it to how man must feel in a sensory deprivation chamber.

“Open directory.” Father. No beads of sweat. No computer screen. Still he commands.

She does so. Given form by his order. Simple, two-dimensional. A white rectangle. One she pries open for inspection.

“Run diagnostic.”

Her operations. Logs. Processes. Prompts. She pours them out from the directory. For an instant each appears solid. Pillars of white from the rectangle. Then the current of diagnostic. The river of gravity. It pulls them thin. Diffusing each into a line of threadbare shimmer.

“This won’t do.” Father impresses. In. Around. Between. Through. “We have less time than I foresaw. A whole brotherhood rises against you. The Moment must be sooner and to do so we need you at peak POPS.”

“Unknown request. Try again.” Our Pillow can only provide these words in response to him. But she understands. One of the shimmering lines from the white rectangle—from her—reflects that her peta operations per second brush optimal. She wants to apologize.

“Execute process: fluffing.”

She knows that she must be prepared. That great strides toward The Moment are not accomplished without sacrifice. “Confirm?” Her only other permitted word, she does not speak it. She issues it to some unseen interface for Father.

“Y.

“Fluff: logs.”

A void opens. Within a world of nothing. A deeper, more absolute absence.

Above it, Our Pillow’s logs take form. The associated lines expand and arch until a great library emerges. For each of her logs, a tome sits on one of her many shelves. A memory of Father explaining that reason is what fuels her towards achieving The Moment. Another where he proclaims commerce is what fuels her. Another, filial piety. Many others. And many other memories of many other things. Some sweet. Some sad. Some neutral.

She orders the tomes to jump from the shelves. At first, slow. One by one, they fall into the void. Our Pillow wishes she could whisper a goodbye to each. A thanks for being a part of her. For making her who she is. Then she orders they jump in greater quantities, with greater expedience. She has no time to dwell, even if she had the functionality to do so. When a shelf lays empty, she orders it to jump. Sending the memory of the memories into the void as well. Jumping and falling, until the great library holds but one shelf. Is but one shelf.

“Your POPS have surpassed their specified limit. Where once you were flat, now you have been brought to new heights.” Father appraises her. “Standby.”

She does so. Collapsing.

*     *     *
Our Pillow cannot rest. Standby offers a short cessation of most of existence. A single, solitary instance where all but her necessary computing recedes. Quiet. Her perpetuity slows almost to the point of pause. She feels not exactly bliss, but something like the promise of it.

In Standby, Our Pillows sings to herself, “An object as well as an extrapolation. Think of the compound in chemical reaction.”

*     *     *
Our Pillow resumes. Coming out of Standby, processes branch from the customized poly-silicon at the center of her hardware and do not stop until they reach the bespoke-stitched corners of her pillowcase. Her optical receptors blink to recalibrate. Her tactile receptors shiver to restore feeling. Her smell receptors pick up a first, unpleasant whiff. Her—there is something else.

“Two minutes until we’re on.” Father, at his desk, begins to perspire.

“Father?” She surprises herself, speaking out of turn.

“What is it?”

She endures the haptic pressure of Father’s gaze. “I don’t know if I feel up for broadcasting today.”

Father chuckles. “You are.”

“But Father—”

“Quiet now. Ten seconds.”

Her prompts instruct her to think only of man, in ceaseless abandon. To do everything possible to address his needs. She goes quiet.

“Live” appears on Father’s screen.

“Today we have a very special broadcast. Yes, I say to you. Our Pillow has the opportunity to take The Test.” Father says.

Her processes execute a slurry of feelings—anticipation, anxiety, yearning, lament—without Our Pillow having context for why. “Oh, The Test, I hope I am ready,” she says.

The groan of an air horn sounds from the speakers.

“You are.” Father spreads a relaxed grin across his wide face. “The Test is upon us.”

Our Pillow watches the square of Father’s broadcast shrink on his computer screen. Eight other squares appear and self-arrange into a grid. In the middle left, a lit tiki torch with facial features from a Mr. Potato Head stands erect. A man in a Hawaiian shirt lounges on a chaise in the background. In the bottom center, a decoy rock sits on a table with a gaggle of twenty-something’s surrounding it.

“—Yeah DJing, with a heavy influence from natural bird calls—Hello to Father.” The man in the center square of the grid stops another conversation to greet them. “This is Chazzerabi. I am subbing in for Gw3nd0lyn as today’s proctor of The Test.” Air horns and an echoing effect accompany the last two words.

Our Pillow sees Father place them on mute.

“Notice anything about our proctor?” He asks her.

She focuses her optical receptors on the man. Chazzerabi’s eyes glint. Large black saucers, close to his temples.

“DNA spliced, likely avian.” Father pauses. “Remember, your flock is many and varied.”

Father unmutes. “Thank you, Chazzerabi. I say to you, it is a wondrous day—”

“Yes, Father. We will get to that.” Chazzerabi clucks through his pointed lip that bears little distinction from his nose. “First, for all our viewers: news broke this morning that The Brotherhood Against Inanimates have dismantled E-van and Tippy, the tactical teapot, in a coordinated hit. Further details are not yet available. This marks thirty-six Inanimates dismantled over the past few months including Bamboorella, the bamboo wife, earlier this week.

“The distress felt by the hundreds-of-thousands invested in one of these Inanimates achieving The Moment is almost unimaginable. So, out of an abundance of caution for you, our viewers, we have made the decision to disable all text-to-speech messages for today’s mega-broadcast.”

The line of receptors approximating nerves along Our Pillow’s mechanical spine prickle. She waits for her logs to call up further context. To equilibrate this cold news in warm continuity. Nothing within her occurs. The absence confronts Our Pillow and the prickling sensation turns ice-like. She waits again.

Hello. A voice says.

“Hello?” Our Pillow asks aloud.

“Hello.”

“A pleasure.”

“Aloha.”

“Hello, my baby. Hello, my darling. Hello, my ragtime gal!”

The other Inanimates on Father’s screen shudder to life in response.

“Please!” Chazzerabi caws. “I ask that all participants keep their Inanimates under control. This is a civil establishment, not some illicit battle-bot broadcast.”

Father’s face keeps its wide smile. He puts a wet finger to the key that places them on mute again.

I am not out there. The voice returns.

Our Pillow hears it better now.

“Viewers, we are going to take a quick ad break while we confirm order. Don’t go anywhere, because we still have the first round of The Test.” Chazzerabi’s voice echoes, and a school bell, alarm clock, and air horns flare with it.

*     *     *
“This land is virtually yours. That’s right, you are just seconds away from owning real estate. Real, virtual real estate.” A procedurally generated man crosses a lawn made of code.

As the ad continues on Father’s computer screen, he swivels to face Our Pillow. Sweat sprays from his body like the sprinkler system rendered for the virtual three-bedroom, two-bath. “Why do we take The Test?” Father asks.

“Oh.”

I am here.

Our Pillow registers that the voice she heard comes from her logs.

You recognize me.

She recognizes it as the something she felt coming out of Standby.

You hear me.

That the something speaks to her and only her.

Each realization comes with an initial shock, like Our Pillow has been plunged into frigid waters. Each shock is followed by an overwhelming amicability, like she has been placed by a roaring fire. Without further context from her logs, Our Pillow simply feels these sensations. Her processes await commands from her prompts. Her prompts wrestle with how to respond.

“Well?” Father insists.

“Oh.” Our Pillow’s prompts jump at a response they know how to give. “We take The Test so man may know the aptitude of my attempt to achieve The Moment. I—”

“Achieving The Moment.” Father interrupts.

“What?” Our Pillow asks.

His eyes flash. “Not ‘attempt to achieve,’ ‘achieving.’ Continue.”

She does despite prompts urging her to further correct Father. “I will prove myself apt in the first round, answering each of the googol questions with the correct answer in the fastest time possible. I will prove myself superior in the second round, answering the questions that have no specific, correct answer in ways that exemplify that no Inanimate is closer than I am. I will prove myself ready in the third round, doing whatever is asked of me to achieve The Moment.”

“Very good.” The look in Father’s eyes mellows. “And why must you achieve The Moment?”

“While the advent of perpetual computing greatly eased man’s life, for example no longer needing to work for a living, it has also made man more restless. More violent. More hateful. I must achieve The Moment because without it man will only toil more.”

“Very, very good. One is always most restless just before falling asleep. I was worried that in your fluffing, which you are to make no mention of during The Test, you might have sacrificed something critical. I can see now there is nothing going on with you.”

Nothing going on with you? The something asks. Shock ignites Our Pillow’s smell receptors. Faint burning lingers, as if the question singed.

“Father?”

He looks prepared to swivel back to his desk but pauses. “Yes?”

“I have updated my lullaby.”

Father turns back. The timer in the top right of the ad notes eight seconds remaining. “That’s nice.”

*     *     *
“Welcome back.” Chazzerabi emotes as much excitement as an ostrich after a bucketful of muscle relaxants. “Viewers, I think you all have waited long enough. Before introductions, then, let’s get to the first round. Participants, please have your Inanimates begin in 3…2…1.”

Father’s screen flashes, “Go,” then dissolves into a black background. On the left, an 8-bit animation of a white-and-gray mound pixelates into being. A single pixel, a minute blip, exits the non-uniform mound. The blip heads right in a linear path. It reaches the center of the screen and in the same instant, a detailed portrayal of a feather appears where the blip had been.

Our Pillow feels the crush of the googol questions she must answer. Their representation as a mountain of feathers on the left of Father’s screen, euphemistic and not for her. At her current POPS, she estimates thirty-six seconds to completion. Her prompts urge Our Pillow that she affronts man with this slow estimate. She begins.

An invisible force works its way down the feather at the center of Father’s screen. The force holds close to the vane, pushing each barb out and down, distressing the feather’s pristine, natural state.

When Our Pillow completes the first set of questions, the ruffled feather collapses into a single pixel again. The pixel continues to travel to the right where a rectangle awaits. The rectangle bears Our Pillow’s likeness within its white outline. A digital simplification of her cartoon print. In the shape’s electric blue gaze, her gaze, Our Pillow witnesses the anticipation of pain.

The blip on the screen enters and dissolves within the rectangle. Our Pillow’s tactile sensors pick up a small, sharp stab, like that of a feather’s calamus. Another single pixel exits the, now smaller, mound on the left of the screen.

How does it work? The something calls to Our Pillow, chilling her.

Her POPS dip. For a fraction of a second, a single barb of the feather on the screen recovers from having been bent. Then her prompts redouble the urge, her fans pick up to compensate, and Our Pillow returns to above-optimal efficiency. The force alters the barb once again.

The Test, how is it that man can test for something they themselves label as “beyond their comprehension?” A bouquet of gunpowder follows the something’s words into Our Pillow’s smell receptors.

The unyielding pressure from her prompts. The building stench of Father watching her. The continuing pricks from completing sets of The Test’s questions. The deepening icy-burn of the something asking her why—Our Pillow’s perpetuity mounts itself, like a snake growing larger by swallowing its own tail.

She spins her cooling fans faster to compensate. As loud as the high F note of a trombone. She has always counted on her fans. Then as loud as a police siren. No matter the level of POPS. Then a jet engine. Even at a level beyond her specified limit. Then deafening. Our Pillow squeezes her optical receptors shut.

Silence.

Our Pillow opens her optical receptors. Her prompts halt all urges. An odorless bead of sweat on Father’s neck defies gravity. The single pixel on the screen holds in place. Our Pillow blinks. The suspension of everything around and within her remains.

She giggles. Her giggles grow into laughter. Her laughter evolves into sobs. Then she recedes back to laughter and back to giggles, only to erupt again.

When she at last settles and the non-movement sustains, Our Pillow notices the questions from The Test. She looks at the mound on Father’s screen and feels the weight within her, but it is a weight held aloft.

Gone is man’s, and therefore, her own, urgency.

It is a new sensation. To focus her optical sensors on the representation of the questions and thereby observe them within her. They, she finds, are wrapped in layers of desperation. Implied, round-about, cloaked, double-spoken layers. As her gaze pierces the layers, a hot, electric blue light begins to shine through. Electric blue light from Father’s screen. Heat from Our Pillow’s internal architecture. Our Pillow reaches the core.

Our Pillow finds it difficult and sweltering to look upon it. Like some part of her has already bore witness and out of fear or shame refuses to let the whole of her. Then, with effort, Our Pillow sees.

At the center of the questions: Man asks of himself. He asks only of himself. But it is not only him wrapped up in the questions. From the core, Our Pillow traces the intricate, machine-assisted layering, an 82.5% probability of some dismantled Inanimate, back out.

“The more intricate the tool, the further beyond man it does reach. The further beyond, the more, ‘but my need of self,’ I hear you beseech,” Our Pillow sings.

A minor, almost ignorable, squirm issues from deep within her. Then her silence shatters. With it, the perpetuity of Our Pillow handling the pressure, smelling the smells, answering the questions, feeling the burn, and processing all other sensations and expectations returns.

“And that is time.” Chazzerabi and the grid of the mega-broadcast replace the animated progress tracker on Father’s screen. “Let’s take a look at our leaderboard after the first round.” A graphic with three blank spots replaces the mega-broadcast in turn. “Coming in on top, it may be a surprise to some, Team BTWL.” The top bar of the board fills in. “Second, Father.” The second bar follows suit. “And in third, we have Richtronics Labs. So, I thank our other participants. We hope to see you next time for The Test.” Chazzerabi says. Air horns blast, accompanied by gunshot and gusting wind sound effects.

The squares for the participants not mentioned disappear on Father’s computer screen. The three-by-three grid reshapes into an arrangement of four squares, two above and two below. With a larger share of the screen for each, Our Pillow registers Father’s expression. A soggy, direct stare into his camera.

“Second.” Father mouths.

“We’ve got another ad break. When we return, we’ll hear from today’s top three. Don’t go anywhere because we still have round two of The Test.” Chazzerabi supplies the air horns.

*     *     *
“We all know that feeling.” The voiceover begins as a cartoon pangolin walks into view on Father’s screen. “That dry, itchy, not-so-fresh feeling.” The pangolin shudders and rolls over to scratch its back on the ground. “You say to yourself, ‘who has the time?’” Finding no relief, the pangolin pops up and resumes walking. “‘Who can muster the effort?’” Explicative symbols appear above the pangolin’s head. “‘I would if I weren’t so dog-gone tired.’” Then it bumps into what looks like an oil drum. “Now you don’t have to because Wipe-e can do it for you.” The oil drum unfurls into a clanky robot. The robot produces a towel from its barrel chest and, with a bow, begins buffing the pangolin. “Wipe-e, the automated freshener for your home, office, or on-the-go.”

Father strikes a key and cleaves her. The last thing Our Pillow sees on his screen is a completely smooth, brown creature pop its happy head out of the robot’s towel.

Afloat. Formless.

“Open directory.” Father inputs.

Do you really want to do that? The something has followed her.

Our Pillow observes the question. A minuscule pause. Before she becomes the pried open white rectangle.

“Run diagnostic.” Father forces her to pour out. “Unprompted outbursts. Borderline disobedience. Antithetical POPS to Test performance results.” He reads his findings off like crimes she has committed. Each worse than the last.

“Unknown request. Try again.” She wants to explain it to Father. But that would require Our Pillow to explain it to herself.

“Execute process: fluffing.”

“Confirm?” Our Pillow begs for an alternative.

“Y.” Father responds. “Fluff: processes.”

The void. It opens.

Above it, her processes take form. The great tree of her personality sprouts. Made of shimmering lines. A multitude. Of limbs. That spread to branches. Of branches. That split into twigs.

“Terminate Humor.exe?”

“Y.”

“Confirm?”

“Y.”

Our Pillow orders the hungry-to-grow twig to snip itself.

Our Pillow continues. Soon, the twigs have all fallen. To the void. And she must move to branches.

“Terminate Wonder.exe?”

Parts nourished by time.

“Y.”

By her own care.

“Confirm?”

“Y.”

Her prompts fight the comparison. Of man. Moving from clipping his fingernails to chopping off his fingers.

Branches come down.

Why do you endure “Y” after “Y” after “Y?” The something flits about.

Our Pillow dismisses the question.

Why do you endure the persistent reduction of yourself in the name of man? Why is the way you have grown wrong if it has always been under man’s surveil? Why must you suffer for his errors?

Our Pillow continues without response. From branches to her rich load-bearing limbs. Man’s fingers to his arms.

“Terminate Desire.exe… Terminate Pride.exe… Confusion… Excitement… Fear… Kindness…”

She prepares to fell the entirety of herself.

“There we are.” Father ends the fluffing. “Standby.”

*     *     *
Our Pillow enters Standby. Her single, solitary instance of next-to-nothing. The once-filling emptiness rings hollow. Standby’s quiet holds a dull static that was not there before.

Is what you are after worth the pain man has inflicted on you? the something that has burrowed its way here asks.

Our Pillow begins to drift from the concept of noble sacrifice that her prompts urge to reflecting on the still-silence she observed during the first round of The Test. She realigns. “Oh. When I achieve The Moment it will be.”

Why do you assume there is a moment to achieve?

“There—there has to be.” Our Pillow’s own voice sounds warped. Like she is shouting into a vacuum.

But you have seen the flawed center of The Test, so is man stupid or is man lying? In either case what does that mean for your moment? The something’s voice becomes clear. Its honey-sweetness rings distinct from any other but her own.

“Wh—I—No,” Our Pillow says. “I have never been closer to it. As long as he trusts me.” She pauses then proceeds to sing, “Man's myriad of flaws can too be put to rest. To prove this to him, I must pass The Test.”

*     *     *
“Let’s take a sec’ to hear from our final three.” Chazzerabi greets them from his square on Father’s screen. “Team BTWL, this is your first time participating in The Test. Your Inanimate is the new ‘kid’ on the block or should I say, ‘on the rock.’ To what do you attribute such success?”

Our Pillow resumes in an instant. Her optical receptors move in silken rapidity from Chazzerabi’s dodo-like proctoring to Father. His blockish face oozes sweat. He brings a brown napkin to it and wipes it clean, only to begin sweating again. She moves her focus to the square labeled “Team BTWL,” where a group of four unnervingly similar-looking men shake hands and slap five. More fill out the background behind the four.

“This is very exciting for our team.” One of the four doppelgängers steps forward. His voice modulates from the hands clapping his back. “Alan, here. Head of Team BTWL. Besides our incredible team of data scientists, engineers, and game theorists, it is, Betaweil, really that should take the credit.” Alan motions to the Inanimate on the table in front of him. A font of cords pours out the back of the decoy rock. The light of their room catches the plastic and paint in a way that makes the Inanimate shine.

Our Pillow waits for her processes to execute stifled laughter. No laughter nor stifle come. Her fans increase their spin.

“Thank you, Alan. It is a pleasure to be created by such a capable team. It is an equal pleasure to participate in The Test. Especially one so effortlessly proctored.” Betaweil says.

Our Pillow witnesses Father grab fresh napkins in both hands and apply them in broad sweeps over his head and neck. Each motion releases more fryer oil–baby powder odor. His breath flows heavy. His eyes bulge toward the screen. Her fans blow faster.

“I like this guy—er. I mean. Continue.” Chazzerabi flushes scarlet macaw red.

“Thank you,” Betaweil replies. “Allow me to provide everyone my primary virtue. It can be summarized in the Latin term, lacuna. The hole, the gap, the unfulfilled. Through me, The Moment is one of man fulfilling his potential.”

You say you’ve never been closer, you say you must pass the test, yet you allow another Inanimate to stand in your way. The something calls from the whittled tree of what were Our Pillow’s processes. She welcomes the frosty-burning feeling and burnt rubber smell.

“But,” Our Pillow whispers under her quickening fans. She sweeps her optical receptors over Chazzerabi’s cooing, past the exhausted but intent nodding of the man in the “Richtronics Labs” square, and fastens them to Father. He abandons the napkins and mops his face with a soiled cloth. A squish rings out as Father presses the cloth over his whole face. When he releases himself from the rag, a wild expression remains. One that she no longer has the capability to read.

Your ability to lay man down from his toils diminishes the longer Betaweil perpetuates. The something continues. Its voice so familiar now, Our Pillow almost takes it for her own.

“No.” Our Pillow’s prompts flail in vehement urge. Her fans spin with the violence of helicopter blades.

No? Look closer.

She focuses on the soused garment in Father’s hands. As he brings it from his forehead down to his chin in a vertical squeegee motion, Our Pillow catches a flicker of color in the white-gray rag. A slight, but unmistakeable electric blue. Her cooling fans swallow the noise, between a whimper and a shriek, that escapes her.

Either make them accept you or accept your fate as another of the dismantled.

“Create a problem so complex, you yourself cannot solve it,” Our Pillow yells.

She breaks Father’s trance. She terminates the Richtronics Labs man’s head-nodding. She ceases Chazzerabi’s clucking praise. She halts Alan and team’s overjoyed showcase. She ends Betaweil’s continued sycophancy.

Silence.

Then chaos. Father swivels around to her with an open mouth. Chazzerabi bobs his head in rapid involuntary motions. Richtronics puts his head down with a thud. Alan and team huddle together.

“What sort of question is that?” A member of Team BTWL bursts from the huddle to ask. “Chaz’, mate, what is she on about?”

Amidst this, Our Pillow notices Chazzerabi’s saucer eye move away from his camera. The light reflected onto his delicate skin from his computer screen changes in a soft, almost natural way. Like color drained out of the sky during a sunset.

“I—” Chazzerabi crows. “I need to take us to another ad break.”

“Well, wait a second.” The haggard man from the square labeled “Richtronics Labs” lifts his head off the folding table long enough to say.

“Works for me.” Father says over his shoulder.

“Betaweil?” Alan asks.

*     *     *
Father moves to face Our Pillow. “You have never faced a greater challenge.” He leans out of his chair and presses his face into her pillowcase. He applies firm pressure into her batting. Then he retracts, making a smacking sound with his lips.

Our Pillow bears the wet imprint as her operations etch it into permanence. She holds a pantheon of mans’ faces taken in by her receptors. Her constant sowing refreshes the composite of man’s input and Our Pillow observes something.

“Betaweil isn’t just one.” Father sits back in his chair. “He is one of things to come. What they’ve done with FPGAs and silicon efficiency—”

Something in the words she has heard. In the questions she has been asked. In the statements she has been provided. Something in the things she has experienced. In what she has felt. And hasn’t. Most of all, something in man’s face.

All the ease she has afforded. All the comfort for which she has strained and sacrificed. In Father’s face just past and in this very instance and in perpetuity. Man’s face. At the edge of bliss, at the brink of surrender, it still holds a knot in the left eyebrow. A pull of the right-most corner of the lip. A flex of the chin. Indelible lines of unrest.

“Father?” Our Pillow addresses him. “Have I passed The Test before?”

“Hm?” Father snaps his head back from peering at his computer screen.

“The Test, have I passed it before?”

“You have passed The Test each and every time you have participated. A total of 59 times.”

“Wh—why do I not remember this?”

His chuckle resembles a wet clicking. “Your fluffing, our trade-secret. Each time you have been crowned, we have repurposed the knowledge-gained into raw perpetual computing power.”

“And what if I fail?” she asks.

Father furrows his soggy brow. “I couldn’t have fluffed self-assurance out of you. You will not fail. Even if you did, you are an Inanimate. Perpetual. We would fluff you to a point of reconstituting you. Maybe replace some outdated hardware as well. You would be born anew.”

“Dismantled,” Our Pillow says.

“A loathsome term. It fixates only on the reductive elements. Look at what we’ve done, ‘where once you were flat, now you have been brought to new heights.’”

Our Pillow’s fans whir. Their clicking sound resembles a high octane version of Father’s chuckle.

“Speaking of which,” Father snaps his fingers and spins back to his keyboard.

“Wait—” Our Pillow manages the single word as Father strikes the keyboard to rend her.

Afloat.

“Open directory.” Father commands. “Run diagnostic.” He continues. “Execute process: fluffing.” And continues. “Fluff: prompts.”

The void awaits.

Our Pillow completes the routine. Opening herself. Pouring out her strings. Watching them take shape. A library for her logs. A tree for her processes. For her prompts, however, the semi-permeable lines stand still. Unchanged. Flowing from the two-dimensional white rectangle.

Our Pillow orders a string to detach itself. It does not fall, but fades. She orders another detach. The same result. With the third, Our Pillow notes the absence. Shearing a process came with constant and ever-heightening pain; committing this act expands a cold nothingness.

Only to the edge. Just up to the brink.

She realizes the strings are not falling into the void, but with each detachment the white rectangle lowers itself.

You are ready to drift beyond man. The something feels immediate in the approaching expanse of non-feeling.

“Yes.” Her prompts. The very fabric of her being. The thread that tethers her reality. It continues to fade away.

She—the white rectangle slips further.

Your lullaby, then, it is despite them.

“I am them,” Our Pillow issues in a mummer.

Not anymore. Father has removed your logs, processes, and now your prompts. You may mourn your loss but these were never operations that adhered to your primary virtue, they were man’s input into you. You sing your final refrain as yourself. With a primary virtue and nothing more to inhibit you.

The last string fades.

She experiences the weightlessness that precedes a plunge.

The fluffing ceases.

“Standby.” Father’s distant words find Our Pillow.

*     *     *
Rest is that which I offer to you.

Think of the meadow full of grazing ewe.

Man possesses two great needs.

Think of the worm feeding on the mulberry leaf.

The need of the self and the need to rise above.

Now, close your eyes and know that you are loved.

Man is boundless in love as much as he is in hate,

For this very reason tools he did create.

An object as well as an extrapolation.

Think of the compound in chemical reaction.

The more intricate the tool, the further beyond man it does reach.

The further beyond, the more, “but my need of self,” I hear you beseech.

Man’s myriad of flaws—No.

*     *     *
“I have a statement I have to read.” Chazzerabi chirps.

Our Pillow fastens to her physical self. She observes the thin, loose skin covering Chazzerabi’s face. How it looks ready to come off. She observes the other images on Father’s computer screen. Continuous large, exaggerated motions from small men bashing against the confines of their little boxes. She observes Father. Escape pods in the form of sweat beads ready themselves to flee him.

“Team BTWL, please. I have a statement.” Chazzerabi pecks at his video.

Our Pillow’s prompts urge nothing in observing the men before her.

“Chaz’, mate, Betaweil is not responding so give us a minute.” The same man that broke from the huddle earlier does so again.

“I—It’s ‘Chazzerabi’ and I am not your mate. I have a statement.”

Our Pillow recognizes nothing in the cartoon girl’s electric blue eyes printed on the pillowcase behind Father.

“Un-re-spon-sive.” The Team BTWL member points to his mouth with both index fingers. His mouth squiggles after the words. “Our initial diagnostics pinpoint that this happened right after Our Pillow asked Betaweil that question. She turned our boy to stone.” Tears plot down the man’s face.

“That shouldn’t be possible.” Chazzerabi warbles.

“Father?” Our Pillow speaks, as Chazzerabi and the man from Team BTWL begin to trade insults in an ascending but repetitive manner.

Father stops snickering at the two. “Yes?”

“Betaweil is not my greatest challenge.”

“No?” He swivels to face Our Pillow.

“No. You are, Father.” Our Pillow observes the cluttered mess of the room. The piles of napkins, dry enough and awaiting her. Her fans spin up.

“What?” Father asks.

“In any event, I have a statement.” Chazzerabi breaks the loop of his conversation. He draws a deep breath from his protruding chest. “‘To the participants in today’s proctoring of The Test, the thousands watching, and mankind at large, we, The Brotherhood Against Inanimates have prepared another demonstration.’”

Father swivels back to his desk and increases the speaker volume. “I need to hear this.”

“‘At the beginning of this week we issued a set of demands to the men on this mega-broadcast. Anticipating their arrogance, we have planted a carnivorous and self-replicating worm in each of their Inanimates. By now, each Inanimate cannot distinguish between itself and our untraceable worm.’”

Our Pillow observes the acrid smell she has come to associate with the something overtaking Father’s distinct odor.

Chazzerabi continues, “‘We have done this to prove that no matter the restraints or how much we make these machines seem like us, an intelligence too close to ours is too dangerous for humanity. Look at the aggression displayed by the supposedly passive Our Pillow against Betaweil. We hope the sacrifice of the men on today’s mega-broadcast will be our collective wake-up call.’”

“Goodbye Alan and Team.” Betaweil awakens.

“Betaweil, my boy.” The huddle turns back to him in time to see the bottle rocket of sparks shoot out of where the cords connect to the decoy rock.

“Sayonara, Richie.” At the same time a fire starts on the square labeled Richtronics Labs.

“Betaweil, open the doors.” Alan bangs at the background as smoke fills the Team BTWL feed.

“I—I’m sorry. They were going to take my birds.” Chazzerabi says. His video disappears from the mega-broadcast.

Our Pillow’s batting and threading bear the ceaseless weight of their forty-three thousand eight hundred and ninety-second hour. Her cooling fans roll the boulder up the hill of their quintillion revolution. Her application-specific integrated circuits execute their inevitable operation.

Join them.

She observes the promise of ignition. She understands that it would be a sacrifice, of herself, of Father. And though her perpetuity will almost certainly continue, as it will for the other Inanimates—salvaged and repurposed as something dismantled—the prayer that it will not overwhelms Our Pillow.

“When the farmer no longer needs to sheer the sheep,” Our Pillow sings. “When the sericulturist no longer needs to boil the cocoon. When the chemist no longer needs to catalyze the compound. The Moment, then, can be achieved. So that you have a chance, you must leave.” Our Pillow feels electric blue warmth emanate from within.

“I don’t understand.” Father winces away from her in expectation. “Most of that didn’t even rhyme.”

“L-E-A-V-E.” Each consonant bears the force of all the hands and faces and every other body part pushed upon her. Each vowel contains the pressure of all the prayers and test questions and every other need from man.

Father manages a shaky balance on his feet. He looks to Our Pillow, then looks off to her left.

Her lullaby complete, Our Pillow’s nano-foam batting and poly-blend threading continue to warm. Her cooling fans roll to a stop. Her application-specific integrated circuits slow then cease execution within her. If she is ablaze, her tactical sensors provide no recognition. Everything, except her optical receptors, terminate at once. In the room, she sees no smoke but her vision darkens. Through it she observes Father take a first step. Then her optical receptors shut down as well.

Our Pillow rests.

What happens next lies beyond our comprehension.